


You Been Gone Too Long

by dancinbutterfly



Series: Justified [1]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Deputy US Marshal, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bars and Pubs, Billy is definitely not, Eventual Happy Ending, First Loves, Goodnight is a Deputy US Marshal, Horne is a Deputy US Marshal, Kissing, Love, M/M, Military Backstory, Motels, Mutual Pining, Red is an IRS Agent, Reunions, Sam is a Deputy US Marshal, Texas, VERY eventual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-27 23:20:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10818870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: Deputy US Marshal Goodnight Robicheaux hasn't seen his first love in twenty years. There was no reason to he would ever expect to see him again for the first time in a terrible bar in East Texas.





	You Been Gone Too Long

**Author's Note:**

> This is _heavily_ inspired by the TV show Justified but does not, in anyway, follow the plot of the show. This will be a series but each story will have an concrete ending.
> 
> Deepest thanks to Decoy_Ocelot. This wouldnt exist without you, Babou.

> **Boyd:** [ chuckles ] Old times.  
>  **Raylan:** Whoa.  
>  **Boyd:** [ laughs ] You been gone too long.  
> 
> 
> \- **Justified** 1.01 _Fire in the Hole_

* * *

 

At first, Goody thinks he’s hallucinating. Has to be. Some son of a bitch slipped something in drink and now he’s seeing things.

A shitkicker bar smack in the middle of I-20 between his office in Tyler and Dallas where the only person of color the patrons ever see is Sam (and the only reason they leave him alone is because he and Sam each wear the star of a Deputy U.S. Marshal), is not a place Billy Rocks can possibly be drinking, looking as loose as a jaguar in the jungle.

So he must be delusional. How else can Billy Rocks be sitting at the far end of the bar, looking even more beautiful with twenty years of wear on him?

“Goody. Hey, brother, you still with me?” Sam asks. When Goody doesn’t turn to respond or say anything back, Sam snaps his fingers next his ear.

The sharp, reality-affirming click does nothing to make the vision disappear. Billy is still there. He’s afraid to blink let alone glance away in case that changes.

“Yeah, yeah,” he waves a hand at Sam to prove, no, really, he heard him. what do you want?”

“I said that I was taking off. Got to drop my sister off in Dallas before work tomorrow so I’ve got to head in early. You need a ride?” Sam puts a hand on his shoulder when Goody still doesn’t turn back from his position facing away from Sam, towards the far side of the room and fucking _Billy_ fucking _Rocks_.

“You going to let me give you a ride home?”

“No thank you, Sam,” Goody says softly, watching as the index and middle fingers of Billy’s left hand trace the rim of his glass in a lazy slide. “I do believe I'll be good here for a little while longer.”

“Now, Goodnight,” Sam begins in a voice that means he is going to casually try and talk about caring about Goody and being concerned about his drinking and his safety.

Goody has his keys out of his pocket and on the sticky wood of the bar before Sam can get that little lecture started. “Take my car key. I’ll call a cab.”

If that’s not Billy, then he’s going to need a fucking ambulance for the amount of liquor he is going to ingest tonight. But if it is really, truly him. Oh. They’ll need a cab, Goody’s brain wouldn’t be able to stay on the road after being confronted with the only man he’s ever loved for the first time in twenty years.

Bottom line is, he’s enough of a man to admit that no matter how this plays out he can’t get home safe on his own tonight. And despite being in the stationed redneck capital of Texas (where he sees as a dozen times as many Wal-Marts as schools, no one seems to appreciate a good book, and he has literally had total strangers tell him that he wasn’t gay and if he’d just come to their church, their pastor could exorcise his demon, honey, it’ll be okay), things are good for him. For the first time since before he was discharged, he doesn’t want to die. So. Sam can have the damn keys.

“Alright,” Sam agrees. “But you call Horne or Red, or at the least Faraday if you can’t get home.”

Goodnight snorts. He wouldn’t call Faraday to help him find his ass from a hole in the ground. The man is a terrifying lawyer, the best AUSA Goody's ever seen. Goody likes working with him but he’s absolutely miserable at everything else. “I’ll get a cab or call. Don’t trouble yourself.”

Sam doesn’t make any noise when he moves but suddenly he’s in front of Goody. Sam’s looking down into his face, searching for something.

Goody has to bite his lip to keep from snapping at his best friend to fucking move because now he can’t see Billy. If he’s gone when Sam gets out of the way, Goody may never forgive him.

“Okay then.” Goody watches him remove the car key from his keyring with more speed and dexterity than he’s ever managed with the damn things before putting them back on the bar. “Call me if you need a ride into work.”

“Thanks.” _Now move_. “Have a good night. Tell Tabitha I said hello.”

“I’ll do that. See you tomorrow.” He claps Goody on the shoulder, turns and walks out. He takes quite a bit of tension in the bar with him. All that matters to Goody is that without Sam here, Goody can finally go to Billy.

For the thirty seconds it takes to move across the room, Goody is truly afraid that he’s wrong. One too many exploding heads viewed through a scope, one too many dead bodies on the side of a long stretch that is more sand than road, one too many fugitives aiming a gun at his head had fried his brain.

When he’s inches away, and he can see nothing but a tawny neck and black hair, he stops cold. He has to be wrong. Has to be. It’s a coincidence, some other Korean man in his forties had wandered into a bar in the middle of nowhere.

“Can I help you?” his quarry asks, without turning.

Goody feels strangled as he chokes out, “Yes. I think you can.”

When Billy shifts on his stool, twisting to look at Goody, that’s it for him. There’s nothing left of his defenses because it is Billy. It really is.

“Oh cher,” Goody breathes, taking the terrible liberty of reaching out to touch Billy’s cheek, grazing his thumb over the soft hairs of his moustache next to his mouth. “You are still the most awe inspiring thing I have ever seen.”

For a moment, Billy freezes up and pulls back like a viper ready strike. Billy on the attack was what had drawn Goody to him in the first place. He had watched in awe while Billy kicked the ass of a dozen grunts in the dive that functioned as a stand-in for a gay bar in a DADT nightmare like Ft. Benning. He couldn’t resist a performance like that back then, young and dumb and full of cum, and bloodthirsty to boot.

Goody doesn’t blame him for not recognizing him. Unlike Billy, he looks totally different than he did when they parted ways. Then, his hair was buzzed to the scalp instead of shaggy and greying, his face smooth shaven. He had no wrinkles collected by suffering through desert wars or endless suburban nights.

Billy’s eyes widen and he draws in a sharp breath through his nostrils. “Goodnight?”

Goody drops his hands to his sides (because an hour outside of Dallas is still _outside_ of Dallas in East Texas) and steps back. He nods though and mirrors where he touched Billy on his own face. “Bonjour, mon vainqueur. Please believe me when I say that your face is the best thing I have seen in years.” He’s smiling. It’s his asshole smile, the one that comes out both when is dealing with assholes he is not allowed to shoot and when he realizes he is being an ass and can’t stop himself and has to ride the experience to its fiery crash of a conclusion.

“We need to leave.” Billy whispers. Under the twang Florida Georgia Line, Goody can hear the voices of the other patrons. They’re not saying anything about the two of them - standing the way they are, looking at each other the way they are. People are usually too interested in themselves to look around but this is queer enough to draw attention so they will. Soon.

“Yeah let’s go outside.”

They explode out a side door and into the back parking lot next to a large green dumpster. Billy whirls on him looking shocked and horrified

“How can you be here?” Billy demands, moving to lean against the dumpster. It’s a smooth move, casual and loose but it’s also disgusting because that dumpster has not aged well.

“I was drinking.” Goody says. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, Billy.“

“Yeah. I wasn’t- Goody. Fuck.” He lifts a hand and pinches his temples between thumb and middle finger, covering his face like a mask. “Fuck.”

Goody has no response for that.

Thirty seconds tick by while Goody tries to memorize those lips. He can’t remember what they taste like but the shape, the feel, how _he_ felt back then.

He gets a couple feet away when he stops and takes Billy’s wrist in a gentle grip and tugs. “Please. I want to see who you are,” He manages, hoping it doesn’t sound like begging.

It works though because Billy drops his hand and gives Goody a hard look. He’s giving away nothing and honestly, all Goody needs is a little. A crumb of what they had for some closure. Something. “Let me, Billy. Please I’ll-“

He doesn’t get a chance to finish his pitch because Billy is surging up and kissing him, right hand grabbing the back of his head and pulling tight when the tension gives out in Goody and he falls into this boy, this man he loved so much.

Billy tastes like gum and scotch and peanuts and skin and saliva. He still likes to bite Goody’s lower lip and tug it between his teeth and it still makes Goody go pliant as play-doh when does it.

Rediscovering Billy Rocks was not worth waiting twenty goddamn years for but God. God, finding Billy again was definitely worth risking complete and utter destruction to chase if it was there. Tasted like Billy’s love was real to him.

“I missed you so much,” Goody whispers. He doesn’t mean to say it. The words claw their way up his throat and out his mouth too fast for him to stop them. He closes his eyes and presses his forehead to Billy’s. He’s hot in the cool night air.

“Goody.”

He shrugs. “I did.”

“Yeah,” Billy says, sagging against the green metal at his back. “Fuck.”

“Well put. Do you have a car?”

“Bike.”

“Well I’d be happy to ride bitch if you have a spare helmet because we should continue this discussion in private, and not just about how that can be both a metaphorical and literal ride.”

Billy laughs, the full open one that Goody used to work so hard to pull out. The surprise that flashed of Billy’s face every time he laughed that way, like he couldn’t believe his own body could move that way to make that sound.

Goody felt like a fucking god when he made Billy laugh like that.

“It’s over there.” Billy points to the right and about a hundred feet to the right sits a huge, tired-looking, terribly ugly brown Harley Davidson. It will fit them both comfortably but it is nothing like him.

“I would’ve imagined you on something red.” Goody says. Something brighter than a poison apple that would make Billy glow. Goody can almost see it now as Billy fishes a helmet out of the compartment under the battered tan seat cushion. “And sleek. Does Jaguar make motorcycles?”

Billy smiles at him and holds out a helmet that looks older than the bike. Maybe this one actually qualified as a “hog” as the movies put it.

“You get on behind me and wrap your arms around my waist. If you need me to slow down tap my arm twice, if you need to stop, three times.” He tugs his own helmet down. “I’m staying at that motel up the road.”

Billy mounts the bike easily and Goody follows, trying not to enjoy being pressed up against Billy’s back. When he’s settled he digs the bottom into Billy’s shoulder gently. “Lead on, MacDuff.”

“Lay on,” Billy corrects, sounding just the tiniest bit exasperated.

Goody can’t stop smiling the whole way back to Billy’s motel.

~*~*~

They don’t make it to talking. They don’t make it out of their clothes. Fuck, they barely make it to the bed. As soon as they get the door shut and drop their helmets, they’re on each other.

Everything is Billy. Billy’s mouth, Billy’s skin, Billy’s hands, Billy’s arms. Moving across the floor is just another way to try and climb into each other.

They hit the bed fast. Goody lands on the bottom, maybe cheating a little. He hates that he has to stop kissing Billy to twist onto his stomach but it’s still so good. He hasn’t put his body in this position since before the transfer to Tyler, hasn’t enjoyed being like this so much in a couple years more.

Like this, all of Billy’s weight is pressing him down into the mattress. He can’t even breathe without feeling Billy on top of him. His ass fits into the cradle of Billy’s hips differently than when they were in their twenties, but damned if they don’t still fit. Billy alternating between toying with his earlobe with his tongue like it’s the most interesting toy since the yo-yo and writing his name on Goody’s neck with his teeth.

Goody writhes back against every touch, trying as best he can to get his hands underneath his hips, undo his fly and shove at his pants and underwear. He isn’t getting very far.

Billy’s weight disappears from his back for a minute that feels like a geologic age before he returns to tug his pants down to his knees from behind. The room is ice cold from an overenthusiastic A/C and the air makes him shiver.

Hot skin pressing against his thighs and shirt make him shiver again, and moan like he’s dying. Maybe he is.

Billy nuzzles between his shoulderblades. “I don’t have anything,” he growls, his moustache scratching just the softest bit on the back of Goody’s ear as he leans up to speak.

“Condom in my wallet.”

“’S enough?”

“Yeah.” It’ll burn like fuck but Goody always gets extra lubed and once he gets going, it’s enough. He likes that it will hurt because he will feel it in his skin - that Billy really is here, even when they’re no longer touching.

Fingers bump as they both fish in his cramped back pockets for his wallet. Goody finds it first and makes a cheer that feels ridiculous in its triumph. He fishes the condom blindly out from between his Target card and a sheaf of receipts. He brings both his arms up until his elbows are beneath his shoulders and presses himself up so that he can rip the foil open.

“Like this,” Billy says, yanking his hips back hard as he fumbles with the packet open. It makes him lose his balance and his chest hits the mattress as Billy’s cock presses against his ass.

Fuck. Years. It’s been years since he’s trusted a partner enough to let them move him, hold his body and take control. Since he joined the Marshal Service? Maybe before? Before Afghanistan?

He can’t remember but he is happy to surrender when Billy’s hands move his legs forward then out to the side, and roughly spread his cheeks so that he can slide hot and wet between them. Goody was always fucking glad to give over to the force in Billy, the power that had allowed him to put down an entire bar but then get back on his chair and order a drink. When they were young, it was the first part of Billy that Goody fell for.

“Billy,” he groans, forcing his arm back behind him, condom clutched in his fingers. The foil packet snatched from between them before rough lips press themselves against his fingertips. It’s a moment that lingers and Goody melts. He turns and pushes his face into the plastic-feeling motel comforter and tries not to cry. He had missed this man. He tried not to, but oh, he did.

“Say my name again,” Billy says a moment later, shocking him back to a reality where big hands hold his hips and the tip of a firm cock presses smooth and slick against his hole. “Goody, say my name.”

“Billy. Billy, Billy, please, Billy, fuck me. I missed you, Billy please, need you, Billy, I- Oh,” Goody chokes on his own tongue as Billy thrusts into him in one long stroke that makes his eyes water and his throat ache. “Oh fuck, cher. Fuck. Billy, cher, yeah. Jesus yes cher fuck I- I can’t- Billy. Billy, please. Please!“

“Shit, you still can’t shut up,” Billy chuckles. His hips keep up a steady, maddening flex in and out and he snakes his left arm under Goody’s chest to hold them tight together. “I never figured out if it’s ‘cause you like to hear yourself talk that much or if you really can’t help yourself.”

Goody wants to say something witty here. He wants to say something charming and sarcastic that would make Billy laugh. If he had enough blood flow to his brain he could likely craft an articulate comeback about both reasons but he can’t. He can’t think that clearly and even if he could, that would require more control than he currently has over himself.

Most of what’s coming out of his mouth now is a tangled mix of pleas and curses. He doesn’t know what most of it is. He just knows that he’s with Billy, that that’s Billy’s cock in his ass and Billy’s mouth on his skin and Billy’s hands digging into his hips. Billy is here and he can try again. He can have a second chance to get things right or at least end things better. Goody is overwhelmed enough by all this but the pure heat between them, still as hot as it was the moment they met in that bar in Ft. Benning, makes him insensate.

Billy lets him talk, holds him tight and lets him fly to pieces. Billy makes him feel loved like no one else has ever managed too, for all their good intentions. Goody chokes out his name and comes in his own hand, eyes screwed shut and sobbing into the fabric beneath him.

By the time Goody comes back to himself, Billy has already come. He’s just lying heavy and limp on his back while the thumb of his right hand is drawing small, lazy circles on the skin of Goody’s hip.

As good as it feels, Goody is no longer in the peak condition of a warrior anymore. Billy’s lean body is a little too heavy now without the adrenaline and lust fueling him. He squirms a little and Billy moves carefully away and to the side. It’s too far and Goody tugs him back as soon as they’re both something close to comfortable.

They lay like a pair of parenthesis, curved in to face each other. Billy’s hand reaches out to trace his nose, his mouth, the path of his beard with its traces of grey and across his eyebrows. Goody lets him because he just wants to stare for awhile.

“You grew up well, Goodnight,” Billy says finally. “Pretty much how I pictured it. Though, I don’t know about the beard.”

Goody can’t help but laugh at that. “Me? Look at you,” Goody says with a warm, drowsy smile. “You grew up devastating. Same everything only you sharpened up like a goddamn razor’s edge. How am I supposed to look at you? Hm?” He winds a thick, loose strand of black hair around his finger, twisting until he is trapped and tangled. “Ain’t decent.”

Billy shrugs. “Have I ever claimed to be?”

“A lot changes in twenty years. I don’t assume you’re still that boy anymore. For all I know, you could be married with a passel of kids by now, your middle class decency overcome by nostalgia.”

Billy doesn’t say anything to that. It’s enough for Goody to know that Billy has no children and no partner, fuck, maybe no one at all. Goody aches. Billy has always deserved everything, for who he is and for what he has survived.

“I should have you arrested,” Goody muses. “For possession of a deadly weapon.”

“I dare you to find it.”

“I meant your face, mon vainquer but if you managed to fuck me like that with a gun still on you, then you have nothing but my admiration.”

Billy rewards him with a chuckle and then a knife appears between them, a butterfly with a blade longer than his hand, all polished metal in varying shades of grey. It’s not as stunning as it’s owner but it is still a thing of beauty. “I’m not fan of loud noises.”

“I recall.” Slamming doors had been the worst, if he remembered correctly. The only time Billy had ever really hurt him had been when he had slammed the door of the squat Billy had called home. He’d gotten smashed into the wall, face first, so hard he had a bruise for a week. He’d told his fellow soldiers that he got in a bar fight. He had not told them how Billy had kissed apologies into his skin, told him that it was bad memories from his childhood in Pyongyang, from where he’d stayed after escaping to the US. “Never managed to master them myself.”

Billy does something complicated with his wrist and the knife flies shut. “Still good with a gun?”

Goody looks at him and feels every fucking day that passed with with them parted. “I suppose. Don’t get much practice as I did in the Army.”

“Hm.”

He untangles his finger from Billy’s hair and cups the back of his strong neck. “Are you well, cher? Do you have…” _What you need?_ Goody wants to ask. _What you want? What you earned by virtue of surviving this life after all you told me and everything else you didn’t about leaving North Korea and living here?_ What he says is, “Everything?”

“I get by.”

“In Bumfuck, East Texas? Doing what, cher?”

Billy shrugs. “This and that.”

Squeezing gently, he drowns in those warm brown eyes. They are the color of healthy soil making Goody feel like he could grow a thousand feet tall in if he could just plant himself with Billy and never go again. “You going to stick around long enough for me to find out what that is?”

“I don’t know.” It’s a raw admission, one that clearly hurts. “I’ve got work.”

“So do I. Just, don’t disappear, all right? Give me a way to find you this time. Please, mon vainqueur.” He called Billy that since the early days because of how easily he’d won Goody’s focus, his mind, his full fucking being. He’d conquering Goody’s heart and when he disappeared with a note that said simply “Don’t look for me. Thank you. I love you.I’m sorry.” Billy had laid waste to Goody in a way that he hadn’t truly bounced back from until well after his second or third deployment.

“I’ll give you my number,” Billy promises. Goody practically sags into him, head dropping to rest on Billy’s thin, sturdy chest. Long fingers dip into his hair and begin to comb through the strands at him. “What about you? Never pictured Sergeant Goodnight Robicheaux settling for Bumfuck either.”

“Master Sergeant to you,” Goody says with a small smile. “I happened to enjoy the atmosphere of that particular bar,” Goody says hastily. “And it’s far enough outside of Tyler as to ensure that the clientele are unrecognizable.”

“You recognized me,” Billy says into the crown of his hair

“I would recognize you a million miles away after a million years.” _How could I do anything less when you are the love of my miserable goddamn life_ , Goody thinks but doesn’t say.

He doesn’t know what Billy would say to that. If he doesn’t return the sentiment, Goody doesn’t want to know. If he does, well, Goody doesn’t think he wants to know that either.

“I can’t believe I didn’t.”

It sounds guilty. Goody winds both arms around his waist, sliding under the hem of his shirt to feel the warm skin on the small of his back.

“You did soon enough, cher. Rest with me. I’ve got work in the morning and you wore me out.” He tilts his head up and kisses the hollow of Billy’s throat, just above the dip formed by his collarbones framed so nicely by a worn white collar, the top two buttons open.

“Yeah.” Billy embraces him back, squirming closer. They are both sweaty, sticky messes. Neither of them care. Goody hasn’t been this happy in years.“Goody, if you get up first, wake me before you go.”

“Only if you promise to do the same.”

“Sure,” he yawns. He tangles their legs together, working at both their shoes with his feet. He’s always been more nimble that Goody. “I can do that.”

Goody falls asleep like that, tucked up against Billy, dressed in everything save his shoes. He doesn’t dream. He doesn’t need to.

~*~*~

Sam is eying him skeptically when he rolls into the office the next morning, excruciatingly late. He knows what he sees - Goody in the same clothes as the day before, with uncombed hair, hickeys on his neck, and beard burn on every visible inch of skin. He doesn’t know if Sam catches the hitch of the well-fucked in his step but that’s there too.

“You’re late,” is his only comment.

Goody grins. “I am. I also am fantastic this morning, Samuel. And how are you?”

Sam narrows his eyes. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“You know what.”

“I assure you.” He presses a hand to his chest, pressing his thumb into the bruise Billy left that morning after programing a number into his phone. It aches and he smiles even wider. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Mm-hm.”

Sam holds up a black key. “You didn’t need this, then.”

Goody snatches it from his hand and makes his way to his desk. He’s got a metric fuck tonne of paperwork to fill out to wrap up his last case. What he does when he sits down is put his car key back on his keychain and pull out his phone. Billy’s number is right there, in his contacts. And there’s a new text he didn’t notice when Sam was talking.

**Mon Vainqueur: Hey.**

Goody smiles at it.

**Goodnight: Hello, cher. Good to see you, as it were.**

**Mon Vainqueur: When do you get off?**

**Goodnight: I make my own hours to a certain degree.**

**Mon Vainqueur: Could you meet me in Dallas then?**

Honestly, Goody isn’t sure about that. But he has enough sick leave accumulated that he could probably manage. Hell, he’s owed vacation time stored up too and Red, the liaison from the IRS the work with on forfeitures, is always reminding them that they can use it or lose it whenever he breezes in from another trip to god knows where, doing god knows what on the vacation he uses to its fullest extent.

**Goodnight: I wouldn’t miss it. Just tell me where.**

If Billy texts him an address, he doesn’t get a chance to look at it because Jack Horne is coming out of his office. The Chief Deputy US Marshal for the Tyler field office is well preserved for a man on the cusp of retirement. He’s gone grey and his bear-like frame strains his suits but he’s a good natured sort. He cares about his team and is ferocious on the rare occasions when he does venture into the field, even if he is a little religious for Goody’s taste.

Tucking the phone away, Goody smiles up at Jack as he comes to a stop at Goody’s desk.

“Morning.”

“Someone lost their watch,” Jack muses, taping a standard fugitive file against his palm. “Have a good night?” He asks in his high, reedy voice before chuckling at his own joke. For once, Goody laughs too, even though he’s heard that one more times than he can count.

“That I did, Jack. That I did. You something for me?”

“I do indeed.” He holds the folder up. “I got a fugitive the Marshal’s office has been trying to catch since he slipped through FBI fingers and popped up on our radar in San Francisco about fifteen years ago. We don’t have a number of confirmed kills, but we know he’s left behind at least ten bodies in six states so far, business men for the most part. The Feebs figure our guy’s either a serial killer or a hitman based on the pattern. We’re not sure but he was spotted in Beaumont day before yesterday heading our way.” Jack hands it over. “ Consider it a gift.”

“Aw, Chief,” Goody drawls, taking the file from him, batting his eyelashes like a Junior League member on the hunt for donations. “You know how to treat me right.”

“Damn right,” Jack squeaks, winking at him before ambling over to Sam.

Humming to himself and trying to calculate how early he can sneak out and make his way up to Dallas, Goody flips open the file. The very first page wipes his brain clean, erasing all thoughts with a screaming white static and a rushing crash of waves in his ears.

Billy Rocks is glaring up at him from the profile. The picture is at least ten years younger than the man he left in that motel but nonetheless, he is unmistakable. Goody would know that face from a million miles away after a million years.

_Oh_ , Goody thinks, staring down at the face he loves so damn much, the one he just got back, not twelve hours earlier. _So this is what losing hope feels like._

He doesn’t move again for a very long time.

**Author's Note:**

> >  
>> 
>> **Notes (aka the bit where DB geeks out and shares her research shit with you):**
>> 
>>   * Most of the stuff I know about Marshals I learned from Justified. That said, I have done a ride along with cops to serve warrants and done a lot of research.
>>   * The [US Marshal website](https://www.usmarshals.gov/index.html) is actually super helpful if you want to know what they do. They are, basically, what folks like Sam would have evolved into - they hunt federal fugitives. They do a bunch of other shit too including running the witness protection program(WitSec) and you can check out the website if you care.
>>   * I have only been to Texas once but it had to be Texas because it had to be. We all watched the movie :D
>>   * This [fantastic article lists the 10 Most Redneck Cities in Texas](https://www.roadsnacks.net/these-are-the-10-most-redneck-cities-in-texas/). I mapped them all and 9 of the 10 were in the [Eastern District of Texas](https://www.usmarshals.gov/district/tx-e/) which is why I had to put it there. Again. Had to. I mean. Come on.
>>   * Faraday is an Assistant U.S. Attorney - which means he's a federal prosecutor. When the government wants to press charges - the AUSA brings them before the court. Faraday is very good at it (because he loves a good fight and it was never about the cards). He is terrible at literally everything else in his trashcan fire of a life which you will see in other stories. Promise.
>>   * Upon joining becoming an official Ranger, U.S. Army Rangers can be sent to one of 3 places to join a Ranger Battalion, one of them being Ft. Benning. Ft. Benning is in Georgia and so am I which is why it was the obvious choice.
>>   * Goody was enlisted personnel, rather than an officer. Check out the rank structure [here](https://www.infoplease.com/us/military-personnel/us-military-ranks) if you're curious.
>>   * While I know Lee Byung-Hun is from South Korea, for the purposes of this fic, Billy is from Pyongyang in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or, as we westerners like to call it, North Korea.
>> 

> 
> If you enjoyed this story, leaving a comment and share this fic on [tumblr](http://dancinbutterfly.tumblr.com/post/160293693865/you-been-gone-too-long-dancinbutterfly-the) are both great ways to let me know! Thanks for reading!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] You Been Gone Too Long](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11349561) by [decoy_ocelot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/decoy_ocelot/pseuds/decoy_ocelot)




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